I lived with abscess after abscess because of fear of having the corrective surgery. Finally the lancings in the ER became more and more horrific as my abscesses got worse and worse. In my case I was terrified of surgery, but the surgery was absolutely nothing compared to the lancings.
After seeing the surgeon in his office, I scheduled the surgery and reported to the surgical center. They were really nice. I got an IV which wasn’t too bad. I waited another 30 minutes and they brought me back. I laid on the operating table and the anesthesia nurse was talking to me about my job etc to get my mind off of being there. She was great. I was awake at least another 3 minutes after they pushed the medicine to make me fall asleep. I woke up what seemed to be a second later and it was over.
Recovery was simple and relatively pain free. I was uncomfortable if I sat, that was about it. No real pain to speak of. So glad I did it.
Funny story: Yes, I did have a lot of bleeding/oozing from the surgery and I had to wear pads taped to my butt inside my underwear. I went back to work 6 days after my surgery. My first morning back, one of my coworkers was really cranky and out of line. A few minutes later, another coworker approached me when I was alone and whispered “someone needs to change his man-pon”. I was instantly horrified and said “Oh my God—am I bleeding??” while simultaneously putting my hand over my tailbone area in shame. He laughed “No, I was talking about our coworker!!”. For a few seconds I was mortified, thinking he was trying to tell me I had blead through my pants. I said to him “That is not the right thing to say to someone who just had a pilonidal cystectomy!! LOL”.
Anyway, I thought it was funny.